John Street Theatre

John Street Theatre (New York). The first permanent playhouse in New York, it was erected at the behest of David Douglass and opened in 1767, remaining the town's principal and, usually, only theatre for thirty‐one years, until it was demolished after the erection of the Park Theatre. Dunlap says that it was modeled after Philadelphia's Southwark Theatre and that “it was principally of wood; an unsightly object, painted red.” He adds that the stage was as large as that of London's Haymarket Theatre. The house was opened with The Beaux Stratagem and was naturally given over primarily to plays imported from England. Nevertheless, it was here that two historically important American plays had their premieres: Royall Tyler's The Contrast (1787) and Dunlap's The Father; or, American Shandyism (1789). During the Revolutionary War the playhouse was known as the Theatre Royal but reverted to its original name after the end of hostilities. It then housed the American Company, first under Lewis Hallam and John Henry, and later under John Hodgkinson.